distortion

A lot of events these past few days reminded me of what my high school teacher taught us. I never really appreciated what she said that much, I think, but I know now what a wise woman she was.

In one of her lessons, she asked five of us to step outside. I was one of them. Then she called me as the first person in, and showed me a piece of paper with a piece of message in it. She asked me to read it to the class, remember it, and then tell it to the second person outside the class. The second person then had to remember it, went into the class and told everyone what he had heard from me, and then stepped back outside to pass it to the third person. This went on until the message reached the fifth person.

Outside, I heard laughter from the class, almost every time one of us was inside. It turned out that as the message was passed on to the next person, the message became different. The sentence did not differ that much from one person to another, but when the message from the fifth person was compared to the first person, the meaning of the sentence changed a lot. I could imagine how amusing it was for the class who heard it!

As the first person passing the message, apparently I was responsible to this distortion. I understood the message (as the way I understood it), and told the next person in my own sentence. The second person interpreted it the way he understood it and passed it to the next person in his understanding. So, after the fifth person, the message was no longer what it was supposed to be.

My teacher told me that I should have memorized the message and passed it exactly the way it was written. Without adding my interpretation. Because, she said, that is the proper way you should pass a message. To my defense, I said, how ridiculous it is just to memorize everything. If you understand what it means, why can't you just say it again in your own way? They will get it too, won't they?

But now I know.. as a message is passed from one person to another, its content can be distorted by a lot of things. Simply by the way people understand it, by the way people re-tell it, and to make it more complicated, by difference in culture and language, that essentially make people see things differently.

I experienced it first hand now, how things can become so complicated, just because of distortion in communication. While when it happens in a classroom it doesn't bring any harm, it can certainly be harmful when it happens in a real life, with a lot of people involved, a lot of organization with different interests.

How to fix it then?

Well.. if only I knew, but I think the key is back to communication. But this time it should be from the first person right away, added with some honesty, maturity, and all good intention to listen and understand each other.